About a year ago, while in Prince Edward Island, I enjoyed a very nice appetizer dish of Scallops with XO Sauce at the Claddagh Oyster House. At first, I thought putting the two together would a little overly rich but they turned out to be wonderful and so I put together the following little appetizer inspired by that pairing…

To make the ‘sliders’, you will need to slice the scallops horizontally into two or three pieces depending on their size. For this dish, I marinated them in a little splash each of dry sherry and oil, and I sprinkled them with a pinch of garlic salt and pepper.

The sauce is, of course, XO Sauce, but I processed mine to make it smoother (many types can be quite ‘chunky’). This batch represents a little over three tablespoons of a commercial XO Sauce, the same volume of dry sherry, and about a tablespoon of oil. This is more than is needed for this appetizer unless you make a LOT of sliders, but I got to extend the last little bit of my remaining jar of XO sauce and will get 3 to 4 uses from it instead of just one or two…

You make the ‘buns’ by taking discs of zucchini and slicing through them horizontally almost, but not quite all the way to make little hinged openings. Then, you can pop a slice of scallop into each ‘one and lightly brush each ‘slider’ with a little oil. The toothpicks help hold the slippery scallops inside for cooking.

Finally, grill the ‘sliders’ on both sides in a ridged grill pan (or a BBQ) until nicely marked and the scallops are opaque and then turn onto a serving dish. Drizzle with the XO sauce (pre-warmed by nuking for about 30 seconds) and, if desired, garnish with a little minced red bell pepper….